Gaming operator Wynn Macau Ltd. may have breached the local privacy law by publicly disclosing personal information of hotel guests as part of a report on removed director Kazuo Okada. An industry expert says the move may scare off some VIP promoters.

A probe led by Louis Freeh, the ex-director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, claimed the Japanese pachinko tycoon, Okada, has given payoffs and gifts to Philippines gaming regulators and South Korean officials.

The report released last week as part of a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange cited mostly free stays and dinners at Wynn resorts in Las Vegas and Macau for the former Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) chairman Efraim Genuino and current chairman Cristino Naguiat, their families, and the husband of former Philippines president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

In addition, the report also accuses Okada of paying for trips and stays in Wynn properties by South Korean officials – including Jong Cheol Lee, the commissioner of the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority – to boost his effort to build a gaming resort in Incheon.

In both cases the report discloses when the guests stayed in the Wynn Macau hotel and total expenses charged to Okada’s company Universal Entertainment. In the case of Naguiat, the document also mentions credit for shopping and gaming.

The disclosure might have breached Macau’s personal data protection law, which came into effect in 2006. The law states that personal data can only be “collected for specific, explicit and legitimate purposes (…) and it cannot later be used in a manner incompatible with those purposes”.